Black As Rat And Crow
by rthstewart
Summary: Three meditations on color for the Narnian Fan Fiction Revolution challenge, "Color"
1. Ch 1 Unseen Pretty Silver Thread

_**Black as Rat and Crow**_

For the Narnia Fan Fiction Revolution challenge, _Color_. Rated T because it's just easier that way.

_Chapter 1: Pretty Silver Thread That Only A Bird Can See  
__Chapter 2: Yellow? Or Is It Kavossed?  
Chapter 3: __Purple Pink Rose, or What Happens In Archenland, Stays In Archenland_

Still not King. Still don't own any of this. With gratitude and admiration to the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis. I claim no ownership interest whatsoever in any derivative fiction I write, and never have. Any original content in my derivative fiction is in the public domain and may be used freely and without notice to me or attribution.  
Special thanks to **Anastigmat**, without whom this would not have been posted.

* * *

**_Pretty Silver Thread That Only A Bird Can See  
__An outtake from By Royal Decree_**

"It's such a pretty dress," the Crow, Gawayne, said from his perch in an oak tree.

"Not the dress, actually. It's the pretty silver thread _in_ the dress," another Crow, Chayton, corrected. "I'd really like to take some."

"I'm sure she wouldn't miss a thread or four," Sadie said with more authority than, in Harah's opinion, a young Crow should assert. "If I took some, Gawayne, would you trade a thread for that shiny golden rock King Edmund gave you?"

"Three threads, at least before I would make that trade," Gawayne countered.

"Two short ones, at most," Sadie replied, prematurely in Harah's opinion, as the young Crow hen had not yet accomplished the theft. Counting eggs before they hatched and all that.

Harah flapped her wings, irritated at the bargaining. She'd fly back to the Roost for Chief Sallowpad, but she was worried the Crows congregating at the bathing pond would make off with the Lady Morgan's gown altogether while the Lady was swimming. It _was _a_ very_ pretty gown, Harah had to admit.

Poor humans, it was _too bad_ they couldn't see it. The silver thread woven into the gown was very attractive, like a ribbon of silver filigree from the Smithy. She'd never seen the like. Following the way the thread wove in and out of the gown of mossy rich green was fascinating, similar to how light moved in a meadow or a stream. Very distracting…

Harah shook her head and fluffed her feathers, forcing herself to look away from the mesmerizing silver thread. She had a job today and King Edmund had given her a shiny wire for doing it. Of course, what she had _really_ wanted was that knife from the luncheon table and tea tray. Queen Susan wouldn't let her keep it, though. And if Cook found out, Harah thought it likely Cook would embed the shiny knife in Harah's own wing.

Back to business. Crows stealing the Lady Morgan's gown, or the thread in it, was not something Harah could permit. She had had enough training for the Murder of the Narnian Intelligence Service to know that humans were attached to their clothing and while they changed it frequently, they did, usually, have it on. Humans did remove their clothing when they bathed, but washed their clothing separately, which really made no sense at all to a Bird or a Beast. It did not seem efficient at all.

If the Crows made off with her gown, Lady Morgan would have a long walk back to the Palace from the bathing pond in naught but her skin, and that wasn't something Harah had observed humans ever doing. Not such a distance, anyways. Although, on the other wing, there might be screaming, which would be very entertaining for the Crows. Harah considered this and dismissed it. The Lady Morgan had managed to outwit Otters; she wouldn't scream if her gown disappeared. Harah could still hear the Otters swearing in the wood. Filthy they were, those Otters. No, Harah thought that if the Lady Morgan found her gown missing, she'd plot _revenge_.

It was time to take matters under her own wing. This was _her_ assignment and she was not going to let these young jackanapes interfere.

"You there!" Harah scolded. She flew down from her perch and landed on top of the gown of mossy rich green with pretty silvery thread woven within it. Lady Morgan had set her gown carefully on a rock at the bathing pond's edge and that was where it would stay, unmolested by greedy Crows with an eye for shiny things that did not belong to them. "Get you gone or all have the Chief on you, I will!"

There were protests and squawks, but these young Crows were ambitious sorts and would not want to jeopardize their possibility for advancement in the Murder and the winning of King Edmund Shinys of their own.

The Birds flew off and Harah was pleased with the effectiveness of her threats. Perhaps she might get one of those nice knives from the Palace's silver tea service as a reward after all. The knives were _very_ shiny, and sharp too.

She looked back toward the pond, but the Lady Morgan was still swimming. Cocking her head to the side, Harah admired, again, the silvery thread woven within the gown. Aslan's Mane! It was pretty. _So very pretty_. It was very like a flashing fish darting through the shallows of a stream, or a piece of fine crystal reflecting candlelight. It caught and held a Bird's eye in a truly marvelous and intricate way.

Harah looked about, but Lady Morgan was well away in the pond, not minding her at all. Since humans could not even see the thread, it was not as if the Lady would even miss it, now would she? _Perhaps, __**just **__**one**__ thread? _

_Well, maybe two. _


	2. Ch 2 Yellow? Or is it Kavossed?

_**Black as Rat and Crow**_

For the Narnia Fan Fiction Revolution challenge, _Color_. Rated T because it's just easier that way.

_Chapter 1: Pretty Silver Thread That Only A Bird Can See  
__Chapter 2: Yellow? Or Is It Kavossed?  
Chapter 3: __Purple Pink Rose, or What Happens In Archenland, Stays In Archenland_

Still not King. Still don't own any of this.  
Special thanks to **Anastigmat**, without whom this would not have been posted.

* * *

_**Chapter 2: Yellow? Or Is It Kavossed?  
**_

"Lu? You don't write Rat and Crow, do you?"

His sister snorted, the sound muffled as she struggled out of her mail shirt.

Peter was writing bent over a propped up stool in their makeshift camp. They were three nights out of Cair Paravel and on their way north to investigate reports of Ettin incursions at the border. The advance spies, their swift, far-seeing Raptors, had reported some flattened trees and boulders that looked to have been dropped or flung from a great, giant-sized height, but nothing else thus far. The Hounds gone to scent out the area had not yet returned.

"Ouch! Peter, would you?"

Lucy's hair always became entangled in the metal links of chain mail and she'd not found a solution for it. He put the writing charcoal down by the candle illuminating their cramped command tent and helped his sister tease her hair free.

"Thank you," she sighed and gently pulled the mail shirt the rest of the way over her head. Lucy was for more careful with her armor than with her other clothing, which looked to be last year's patchiest.

She looked around his shoulder at the parchment spread on the stool. "_Barracan_?" Lucy asked, reading the cipher he had written. "Is that the right code word? Doesn't _Barracan_ mean _The battle has begun_?"

"Does it?" Peter replied turning back to the coded update that was to be his daily report to Edmund. "I thought _Barracan_ meant _All is well here_."

Peter would rather review trade treaties involving cotton and chicken legs, negotiate border disputes between knife-wielding, ravenous, stinking hordes, settle marital disputes between Songbirds, and teach dancing to a score of stupid princesses pretending to be demure, than write a single line to his brother or sister from the road. He really loathed this cipher of Ed and Su's. He understood the need for it, he was glad they had developed it, but by the Lion, did his brother and sister have to make it so bloody complicated?

"I thought _Crisp_ meant _The battle has begun_," he said.

"No," corrected Dalia, Peter's Cheetah Guard, from her watchful corner. "_Crisp_ means _Can you recommend a good cook_?"

"I believe _Yellow _is the word you require, High King," said Briony, Lucy's She-Wolf Guard.

"_Yellow_?" Peter repeated, rubbing out _Barracan_. At this rate, he would put a hole in the note to Edmund. Peter did wonder if any Ettins could read a message much less have the wit to decode one. Still, High King or not, in matters of security, Peter did defer to the more suspicious minds of his brother and Susan, inconvenient and tedious though it was.

"Yes!" Lucy agreed. Thank you, Briony dear. _Yellow _does mean _Battle has not yet been engaged_." She paused. "I think."

Lucy was no better than he at Rat and Crow, always a problem when the two of them took to the field together and left the Concert of Minds behind.

_A second opinion was warranted._

"Dalia?" Peter asked, looking to his personal advisor and sagacious confidant.

"I concur," the Cheetah said.

"_Yellow _it is then," Peter said, writing the word with a flourish. "What else?"

"We should tell King Edmund no enemy has yet been sighted," Briony offered.

"Oh! I know that one!" Lucy exclaimed. "It's _Kavossed_!"

Peter frowned. "I don't think so, Lu. I think _Kavossed_ means _Our compliments to your House in this season of joy_."

Dalia offered, "I thought it meant, _Supply wagons struck by lightning_."

"I _believe_," Peter said, racking his weary mind for the appropriate coded phrase, "_No enemy yet sighted_ is either _Cargoose_ or _Hurst_." He looked to his assembled team who, noble, brave, and talented though they all were, nonetheless were Rats and Crows neither by pedigree nor inclination – for which daily he thanked the Lion most ardently. "Thoughts, my Friends?"

"I thought it was _Kavossed_," Lucy said frowning. With a shrug, she said, "Just write all three. and say, 'Don't remember which word means _No enemy yet sighted_.'"

Peter dutifully wrote out to Edmund, "_Forgot if 'cargoose,' 'hurst,' or 'kavossed' means 'No enemy yet sighted.' Please advise. Regardless, condition is Yellow_."

This message, Peter had to concede, would make his brother and Susan rather cross.

* * *

The Rat and Crow code comes from an article the fabulous **Anastigmat** sent to me from the _New York Times_ regarding shorthand people once used when sending their telegrams – Twitter for an older generation. _Cargoose_ in fact stood for _It will be necessary to exercise caution_ and _Kavoss_ meant _A large number killed_. **Anastigmat** concluded that such a code obviously belongs in the cipher of the Rats and Crows of the Narnian Intelligence Service in _The Stone Gryphon_ vision of things and that Peter would of course try to use it but be befuddled by it.

For future reference, _Happenstance_ means _What happens in Archenland, stays in Archenland_. To that end, the conclusion, _Purple Pink Rose_ follows tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3 Purple Pink Rose

_**Black as Rat and Crow**_

For the Narnia Fan Fiction Revolution challenge, _Color_. Rated T because it's just easier that way.

_Chapter 1: Pretty Silver Thread That Only A Bird Can See  
__Chapter 2: Yellow? Or Is It Kavossed?  
Chapter 3: __Purple Pink Rose, or What Happens In Archenland, Stays In Archenland_

Still not King. Still don't own any of this.  
Special thanks to **Anastigmat**, without whom this would not have been posted.

Ahem, right, this chapter probably really deserves that T rating.

* * *

**Chapter 3: _Purple Pink Rose, or What Happens In Archenland, Stays In Archenland_**

"Have you yet written the letter owed?"

"The next time, Jalur, you may try writing news of such import as that of this week to Susan, in Rat and Crow, and see how long it takes _**you**_," King Edmund grumbled. His sister would read his encrypted message and understand it. Peter, in contrast, was hopeless at this business. As his brother refused to learn the cipher, Edmund would refuse to relay the news and the High King could just wait until he either returned from the North, or a Bird could be found reliable enough to both locate Peter and accurately make the report.

"I was **_not _**referring to the letter owed to the Queen Susan," Jalur, his Tiger Guard, countered with asperity.

"I will get to all correspondence in good time," Edmund retorted. He knew what the Tiger was implying and was determined to ignore the hint. "You would do well to..."

"Queen Lucy and Briony come," Jalur interrupted suddenly.

Goodness, the Tiger sounded smug. Before Edmund could form the appropriately wry and witty observation, Jalur pinned him with a very fierce stare. "If you are teasing of the Queen Lucy in any way, I shall personally throw you to the Wolf."

So, Briony and Jalur had already consulted? He was not surprised in the least. Edmund had, quite by accident, learned personally just how devious and surreptitious their Palace Guard could be. What role Briony and Jalur might have played in the events of the last few days was supposition he would keep to himself.

Regardless, "Peter is the one more likely to make the fuss, not I."

"In which case the High King shall be thrown to the mercy of the Wolves _**and **_the Felines."

"So, you would collaborate even with a _dog _on this, Jalur?" Edmund taunted.

Jalur ignored him, settling back on his haunches as if nothing had been said. Nor did Edmund have the opportunity to comment further for a moment later his sister staggered into the sitting room they were sharing. Lucy's Wolf-Guard, Briony, followed.

"Well, look what the Cat dragged in."

Jalur growled faintly, showing himself to be nag and nanny goat, only seeming to be wrapped in a Tiger-shaped package. _Oh, very well. _

"Thank you so much, Ed," Lucy muttered through a yawn. "What ever is the time?"

"Near noon."

"Oh. That late?"

Briony looked over the room carefully and evidently finding it to her satisfaction very deliberately shoved the outer door shut with her nose, assuring her Queen's privacy.

Heeding her Guard's actions not at all, Lucy collapsed into an inelegant heap across from him at the table, and stared, dazed, at the late breakfast Edmund had kept for her. Contrary to what Jalur might have supposed, Edmund had long since chased the Archenland servants away in anticipation of Lucy's return. He had assumed all along that he, Jalur, and Briony would see to Lucy's modest service and needs themselves.

"Lu?"

"Hmmm?"

"Your gown is inside out and you will want to do something to cover that purple bruise blossoming on your neck before we make our day's courtesies to King Lune."

Her cheeks pinking, Lucy pulled the gown back up from where it had been sliding precariously off her shoulder. She started to mumble something but Edmund interrupted her with a gentle, "May I pour you some tea?"

The pink blush on her face bloomed fully. Lucy nodded gratefully. "Please." She yawned again.

Unsure if the faint, threatening growl rose from Briony or Jalur, Edmund clamped down on his own smile and poured. He had to push the cup into her hand as Lucy had gone quite dreamy and vacant again. It had become a near perpetual state for her. Briony, more than once, had had to keep her distracted Queen from falling down stairs and walking into stone walls.

Taking his cue from Briony, calmly, he continued, "Su sent a Bird, anxious for news. I have already written with the pertinent bits, smashing victory, Rabadash being an ass and all that."

"She will want to hear from me as well, I suppose." Lucy said faintly, sipping her cup. She sounded quite too flummoxed to manage a coherent reply. "Would you mind terribly, Ed, just adding something for me?"

"Not at all."

Perceiving approving nods from the assembled Guard, he jotted a few words down on the note intended for Susan and slid it over to his giddy and very tired younger sister.

"_Kismat odishly happenstance_," she read with a protesting complaint. "Edmund, you know I don't read Rat and Crow. You must translate that for me."

"_Made the most of an unexpected opportunity. The affair was managed well and discretely. What happens in Archenland stays in Archenland_."

Lucy pursed her lips in disapproval, echoed by faint growls, Feline and Canine in aspect. "Well, that sounds like something you or Peter would write and does not cover the full of my state _at all_."

"I see your point, sister." _And observed those sharp points in the mouths of Tiger and Wolf._ With far greater solemnity than he felt, Edmund drew the encrypt back, added another word, and again offered the letter for her inspection.

"_Rosehips_?" Lucy asked. "What does that mean?"

"That you are deliriously happy."

He saw the tension leave her frame and a slight exhalation of relief. "You don't object, do you Ed?" she asked softly.

Edmund considered this query very carefully. Lucy should not even be asking the question, yet she was, and given what had so recently occurred, he supposed trepidation was warranted. He took in with a glance Briony sitting quietly in a corner. The She-Wolf was staring balefully back at him with a slight curl in her lip, revealing a canine tooth in a classic threat display. Jalur's warning had not been idle. If he said the wrong thing, he was going to have to answer to _her_, the Wolf was saying.

Briony, true to her kind, was a sound judge of character, and as the Wolf was enthusiastically supportive of foot soldier Aidan of the Archenland infantry, well then so was he.

"It should not matter if I did object, Lucy, but as it happens, _Rosehips _for you."

She frowned, trying to work through the cipher in this context.

"I am deliriously happy for you, Lucy."

* * *

The above is the beginning of an event referred to in _Chapter 11, The Stone Gryphon, Part 1_wherein Mrs. Beaver, Briony the She-Wolf, and Trice the Eagle advise the Valiant Queen on matters of the heart and her betrothal to Aidan, foot soldier of Archenland.

Thank you all for the kind reviews as to Chapters 1 and 2. Herein ends my own contribution to the Narnian Fan Fiction Revolution color challenge. I've linked to the site and their fabulous podcast from my profile.

RthStewart August 2009


End file.
